Ashroot never truly slept.
Even in the hours before dawn, when the mist curled thickest around the roots and every branch sagged with cold dew, something stirred beneath the silence. The ground breathed. The old trees shifted. And deep within the earth, forgotten seeds whispered their names to no one.
Yuzu Kaien stood alone on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the ghost-thick forest below. His breath misted in front of him, and the sigil on his palm pulsed faintly with each heartbeat. Behind him, the village lay quiet — no footsteps, no crackling spirits. Just the distant creak of windblown wood and the memory of rain.
He hadn't slept since Saro arrived.
Not properly.
Each time he closed his eyes, something different waited. Not the orchard. Not the Primordial. Something… blank. A space shaped like a person. A flavor that tried to taste him back.
He hadn't told Mira.
Not yet.
But he felt it now, even awake — like a thread winding through him, pulling him toward a silence so deep it swallowed sound.
A voice broke the cold.
"You keep watch like you're waiting for a storm," Mira said, stepping up beside him.
He didn't look at her. "A storm announces itself. This… doesn't."
She studied his profile, then followed his gaze. "You think Saro's right?"
Yuzu hesitated. "Yes."
"Then what are we doing here? If it's coming, shouldn't we be running?"
"No," he said. "It's not chasing me."
"…Then what?"
He turned slowly. "It's circling. Waiting for something to rot."
Mira flinched slightly, but said nothing.
He didn't have to explain. She understood. The signs were there — the way his sigil dimmed when he slept, the way the Thornfruit pact mark itched like old bark trying to split. Something inside him had changed. Not grown. Shifted.
Later that morning, the village gathered in the Archive.
Not for memory.
For warning.
Saro stood at the front, coat half-unbuttoned, arms crossed as he spoke in a low, steady voice. Around him, Ashroot's broken — the Spliced, the Fractured, the Forgotten — listened in silence.
"You'll feel it before you see it," he said. "A quietness that doesn't belong. A stillness that doesn't match the wind. It won't move like a spirit. It won't look like danger. But it will taste… like home."
He turned, and his gaze found Yuzu across the room.
"It mimics."
Yuzu felt every eye shift toward him.
He didn't flinch.
"Then what do we do?" someone asked from the back. "How do we fight something that wears our memory?"
Saro didn't answer right away.
Then: "You don't fight it with strength. You fight it with truth."
That night, Mira found Yuzu alone in the garden again.
"You've been quiet."
He nodded.
She waited. Then finally: "What did you taste last night?"
Yuzu looked at her.
Not past her. Not around her.
At her.
"You."
The word dropped like a stone into water.
Mira blinked.
"I dreamed you came to me," he said. "Said we should leave. That Ashroot was dying. That the Orchard lied."
Her breath hitched.
"But it wasn't you. It looked like you. Sounded like you. Even smelled like you."
He tapped his sigil.
"But it didn't taste right. You don't taste like regret."
Mira closed her eyes, slow and steady.
"That's how it starts, isn't it?" she whispered. "It shows you the person you trust most."
He nodded.
"And it asks a question," she added.
He met her gaze. "What would you trade to stay yourself?"
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
Finally, Mira stepped forward. "Tomorrow, we stop waiting."
Yuzu's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
She pointed toward the roots of Ashroot — the deep grove beyond the Archive.
"There's a place beneath the village," she said. "A place where old pacts rot. They say the first Burned Gardener made his final seedbed there. No one goes."
"Why?"
"Because the silence grows loud."
Yuzu exhaled. "Then we go."
The entrance was hidden behind a veil of thorned ivy, twisted so thick it had formed a natural arch. Beneath it, a staircase descended into black soil — not stone, not carved wood. Living soil. Pulsing with scent.
Mira lit a spirit-lantern.
The walls of the tunnel writhed faintly, lined with vines and bones. Not human. Spirit-bones — the final husks of unrooted fruit auras.
Each step deeper brought more silence. Not the absence of sound, but something heavier. Like sound had been consumed.
At the bottom was a chamber.
Circular.
Empty.
Except for a single stone, carved with a spiral sigil Yuzu didn't recognize — but his tree did.
His sigil flared.
The soil rippled.
And something uncoiled in the dark.
Not a creature.
A memory.
Mira gripped his arm. "It's here."
Yuzu didn't move.
A shape stepped into the light. Not monstrous. Not shadowy.
Yuzu stared at himself.
Perfectly mirrored.
Except…
The sigil on his mirror's hand was still. Solid. Complete.
"You came," it said.
The voice was his. The tone wasn't.
"You're not me."
"No," it said. "I'm what you could be, if you let go. If you stopped fearing the orchard."
Its smile widened. "I tasted your pact. I tasted your pain. And I learned your shape."
It stepped closer.
"You're not strong because you bit the fruit," it whispered. "You're strong because you were hungry enough to finish it."
Yuzu's sigil flared. Thornfruit. Primordial. Vesca. Saro. Mira.
All flavors, tangled.
The mimic reached out a hand. "One more bite. And I'll be you. Perfectly."
Yuzu didn't step back.
He reached too.
And placed his palm flat against the mimic's chest.
[Seed of Truth – Activated]
The mimic blinked.
Then screamed.
Its mouth opened, but no sound came.
Only taste.
Salt. Ash. Burnt dreams.
The mimic fell apart — not in flesh, but in flavor.
A hollow fruit, collapsed from the inside.
Yuzu stood over it, trembling.
Mira touched his shoulder.
He looked at her.
"You were right," he said.
She raised a brow.
He whispered:
"Silence is the loudest lie."